Page 25 of Crash and Burn

Hudson laughed and said, “Why am I not surprised that you brought me to a bookstore?”

I smiled, “What can I say? It only seemed appropriate. We can eat here if you want.”

We get off the bus and I turned back to Jimmy, “I’ll text you when we’re about done. Is that ok?”

“Quite alright, darlin’. I am going to go grab me a bite to eat and just read my book here.” He shookSomething Wicked This Way Comesat me. The book he had read a thousand times.

I giggled. “Thanks, Jimmy.” I gave him a wink and turned to Hudson.

He looked impressed when we exited the bus. When the door to the bus closed with a creak, he asked, “You set all this up? And he’s really going to wait for us to be done?”

I nodded. “Yep. Come on. I want you to pick out a book.”

We roamed the bookstore for a solid thirty to forty-five minutes. Sometimes we walked together and other times we went separate ways. I went looking for him to see if he wanted to eat in the café part of the bookstore. He was hungry, so we got sandwiches.

I noticed that he set a book on the table, so I asked, “What book did you pick out?”

“Well, I watched season one of The Witcher, so it made me want to read the book, believe it or not.”

“Yes! I watched it, too. So damn good.”

“Are you not getting a book?”

“Nope. It’syourbirthday, plussomeonejust bought me four new books that I’ve never read before.” I smiled and looked up at him.

His eyes met mine and we stared at each other. It felt like the air had frozen around us. I cleared my throat and said, “So, are you ready to go? We can check out and head to the next place.”

He looked down with a small smile and said, “Yeah. I’m ready.”

I sent Jimmy a text while we were eating, so when we checked out and headed outside, Jimmy was already in front. He told me people were trying to get on and he had to tell them that this bus wasn’t in service. He actually put a little message on the digital sign. It said, “HUDSON” on it. I elbowed Hudson and nodded toward the sign.

“Oh, wow.” He blushed.

I laughed. “You’re kind of a big deal, huh?”

“How did he do that?”

“Magic.” I smiled. “Come on.”

We were riding to the next stop when I said, “Let Jimmy know we want off now.”

Hudson pulled the string again and he had a huge grin on his face. I thought,He looks like a kid at Christmas.

Jimmy pulled up in front of our local record store, Midnight Records.

“Here you go.” Jimmy stopped the bus and opened the door.

“A record store? I don’t own a record player,” Hudson said.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to fix that. Every home should have a record player.”

He laughed, “What?”

“Come on!” We jumped off the bus and Hudson held the door to the record store open for me.

After we were inside, I turned to see Hudson’s reaction. He looked around at wall-to-wall records stacked in reclaimed shelves and vintage music memorabilia and smiled. I showed him around and told him where everything was.

I said, “Okay, here’s the plan. I’m going to pick out a record foryouand you pick out a record forme.”

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